Record to GIF is a very professional recording and creating GIF tool. It can record high quality video and audio, and export video and GIF files. With this software you can capture videos from screen or camera. You can also directly create GIF from the video file. It is both a recording tool and a making GIF tool.

Record to GIF is a very useful GIF tool. With it you can export interesting video clips to GIF files. You can trim video, crop video, add caption and adjust colour on video. Share funny GIF files with your friends.

To enjoy all features please download it.

Note: If you have some problems, please tell me (send an email to jimmypeeler369@gmail.com) I will solve these issues as quickly as possible. AppStore can not reply you.

2. Main UI

Run Record to GIF.app, your menu bar will appear its icon, click the icon, its menu will be shown as the following:

You may select "Start Record" to start a recording, select "Stop Record" to stop a recording, select "Pause" to pause a recording, select "Resume" to resume a recording, and select "Settings" to set a recording settings. Create GIF window will appear after stoping record.

3. Functions introduction

Record settings dialog UI as the following:

3.1 Recording Mode

You may select “Desktop Screen” or “Camera” in Recording Mode. When you select “Desktop Screen”, you may set "Full Screen" or you may set "Custom area" then select the screen area you want to record, you may click "Select a area" button to change the selection area. When you select “Camera”, you may choose some camera if you have more than one camera. You may set the video quality from "Quality preset" popup button, default value is High. You may set the video max frame rate from "Max frame rate" popup list, the frame rate value is more big the video is more smooth but the video size is more big. You can capture the mouse clicking position on screen if you mark "Capture the mouse click position" check box.

3.2 Audio settings

You may set the audio device from device driver popup button.Notice: The sound may be mute if you select a invalid sound driver. If your recording audio have problem, you need open "sound" tag in System Preferences, check the selected device in Output tag and Input tag and change them to the default device. the Output default device is "Internal Speakers" and the Input default device is "Internal microphone".

3.3 General settings

You can set up a recording time length, and stop automatically when the time is up.

You can set whether or not to open the recorded movie when recording finish.You can set whether or not to start Record to GIF when the computer system starts.

You can choose a path to save the recording movies and snapshot pictures. The default path will be Movies folder.

3.5 Make Video to GIF

Make Video to GIF UI will appear when you recording finished. You may edit or trim your video, and set GIF properties, export GIF file and share GIF or video files.

3.5.1 Player button

Goto begin.

Fast backward.

Play / pause.

Fast forward.

Goto end.

3.5.2 Volume button

Set sound volume when playing a video.

3.5.3 The progress of the video playback and clipping video

Set the start point of clipping video. (Or you can clip the video by dragging two orange small triangle.)

Set the end point of clipping video. (Or you can clip the video by dragging two orange small triangle.)

You can clip the video by dragging two orange small triangle. Your GIF files will be generated from the clipping video if you set the clipping point.

Display the play time and the total time.

3.5.4 The Import, Export and setting buttons

You click the button in order to import a video file. The open dialog will show when you click the button, you can choose the movie you want to create gif file.

You click the button in order to crop the video. The below UI will appear when you click the button, you can resize or move the crop area. You can click the "Crop" button when you are sure you want to crop the area. The video will be only displayed in crop area.

Click the button in order to add some text on the video. The below dialog will appear when you click the button, you may design the text you input. Click the button to set font size, color and name. You may also set the text outline color, shape, shadow and blend color. You can set the very beautiful font effect.

Click the button, show standard font settings panel as the following:

Click "OK" button in text settings dialog, the following UI will appear, you can drag it for adjusting the text size and position.

Click the button in order to adjust video color. The below dialog will appear, you may adjust video effect through dragging the slider.

Click the button in order to set the properties about GIF file. The below dialog will be displayed.

"Frame Count" will control the image count from video, "Frame Delay" will control the time between one image and next image. The "Frame Delay" input value is in milliseconds. "Loop Mode" have Normal and Reserve, it will control images playing order."Loop count" will control gif file playing loops number. You can reduce image by setting the scale ratio. You can increase or decrease speed of a file by adjusting the frame delay value. "Improve GIF quality with dithering" check box is checked, the GIF image quality will be good, but the GIF file size will be a little bit bigger.

Click the button in order to export the GIF file. The success dialog will display if the GIF file is saved successfully.

Click the "Preview" button, then the GIF file will be played.

Click the button in order to share the GIF File to your friends. Click the button, select the GIF or video files, select sharing way, input account info and share them.

How to export good GIF File?

4 Ways to Optimize an Animated GIF File

GIF is the standard format for compressing images with large areas of solid colors and crisp details like those in line art, logos, or type. Being an 8 bit-depth image format it would have disappeared from the web after the introduction of the JPEG and PNG file formats, but GIF is still a favored web file format thanks to its frame animation feature. In this tutorial, we will have a close look at all the available options to convert a video to a GIF animation, and how to optimize its file size. Let's get started!

1. Trimming Animation

First of all you will need to open the video file. Most of the time you won't need the whole sequence for the GIF animation, so you can trim the video in the Timeline Slider. Try to find a good place to trim your video.

2. Reducing Image Size

You can either reduce the image size from GIF Properties. I prefer to drag scale slider to reduce image size.

Since GIF files contain a limited number of colors, we may want to imitate the missing colors with available ones using the dithering. Dithering adds different-colored pixels in close proximity to each other to simulate secondary colors or smooth gradations in color. Some images must contain dithering to look good, but it's best to use the least amount of dithering possible to keep the smallest file size.